Plus500 (LSE:PLUS) — Interim Results

0:02 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PLUS500 LTD interim results investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and could be submitted at any time via the q and a tab. It's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions at any time and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, all questions will be reviewed with responses published on the investor meet company platform where it is appropriate to do so.

0:33 Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I'd like to hand you over to CEO, David Zeruya. Good morning, sir. Good morning, everyone. I'm David Zeruya, PLUS500 CEO, and I'm joined by Lade van Cleen, our group CFO. Thank you for joining us today. Turning to slide two, we chose the agenda for today. Once we've run through the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. I will start today with a brief overview of our business and our key growth opportunities. Firstly, I would like to outline the key drivers behind our outstanding operational and financial performance during H1 twenty twenty two on Slide four. From a customer perspective, our active customer base remain robust and we continue to lead the way in a number of strategic markets in our OTC business.

1:27 We have over 23,000,000 customers registered on our platform, highlighting a significant monetization opportunity for PLUS500 as we continue to deliver strong execution in attracting and onboarding new customers. Our financial performance was again outstanding with substantial growth in revenue, EBITDA and EPS and our cash balance at the end of the period standing at nearly $1,000,000,000 This was reflected in further significant shareholder returns. From a governance and sustainability perspective, our board was further diversified, with the board members continuing to add significant value in helping to guide and oversee the business. We continue to ensure that PLUS500 remains a very attractive and rewarding place to work, and we placed additional emphasis on providing our customers various educational content and risk management tools.

2:24 Finally, on this slide, we made huge strategic progress during the period in further strengthening our position as a global multi asset fintech group, particularly as we made significant headway in building our position in The U. S. Futures market. This progress was driven by continued organic investment and targeted acquisitions and supported by our robust technology. On to the next slide, our performance during the period further builds on our strong track record of operational and financial delivery. This is due to the strength and capability of our proprietary technology, which drives our operational excellence, our market leading product offering, and our cutting edge marketing approach.

3:10 Our flexible and scalable business model ensures we have adapted to changes in the market environment and in customer behavior. Our agility as a business and as a management team, supported by ongoing investment, is also highlighted by our continued progress in diversifying our revenue base, geographic footprint, and product portfolio. With a very robust financial foundation, these elements have ensured that we have been able to develop a high value, long term and sizable customer base. As a result, we have created a position as a global multi asset fintech group with a number of substantial and accessible growth opportunities available to us. On to the next slide, our proprietary technology is PLUS500's key enabler and competitive differentiator.

4:01 It powers PLUS500's product base consisting of our OTC product offering, which is how we define our CFD product, our futures offering in The U. S. And our recently launched shared dealing product PLUS500 Invest. We plan to launch more new products in the future.

4:21 Every element of our technology is seamlessly interconnected across operations, product, and marketing capabilities supported by robust systems architecture. Our technology delivers a broad range of specialist services within each of these areas supporting the continued development of our product portfolio. These specialist services include search and data analytics capabilities in marketing, payment processing, and customer onboarding. In addition, the ability to rapidly add new tools, features, and financial instruments to our product offering to speedily address evolving customers and market requirements. Those specialty services enable our business to remain agile and scalable as we continue to grow by catering for more customers across more products in more geographies.

5:17 Let's look in more detail at our excellent progress during the period against our key growth opportunities on the next slide. We continued to make headway in further diversifying our product portfolio and geographic footprint by entering and developing a new position within new markets and launching new products. This continued to be achieved through organic investment and targeted acquisitions. In our OTC product offering, with substantial potential customer demand available outside of our already extensive geographic footprint, we continue to target a number of new markets. This is being achieved by obtaining new operating licenses either organically or via acquisitions.

6:04 In February 22, we obtained a new license in Estonia, which will act as an additional foundation of our business across Europe in our OTC product offering. In March 22, we completed the acquisition of a regulated entity which offers OTC products in Japan and expanded our geographic footprint into the substantial retail trading market. We will apply our financial and technological strength to scale and develop this business over time. Our proprietary scheduling platform, PLUS500 Invest, was launched on Android and iOS mobile apps. This product helps to drive the expansion of our product range and geographic footprint, improve customer retention, and diversify our revenue base.

6:52 With ongoing investments in technology and our people, particularly at our R and D centers in Israel, we'll continue leveraging the latent base of over 23,000,000 customers registered at our platform since inception through retention, activation and monetization initiatives. I would now like to focus on our significant opportunity in The U. S. Futures market on the next slide, where in just over one year, we have already built a strong and growing position.

7:21 Firstly, in the significant retail futures trading space, we expect to launch in the third quarter of the year an intuitive new trading platform specifically designed and tailored for retail traders. This will enable us to benefit from the continued increase in accessibility to the futures market for the retail trading community. In this retail space, we aim to establish a new technology based presence, utilizing our technological expertise and solutions as we have done historically with our OTC product offering. That will help us to offer an innovative, easy to use trading platform to enable the retail audience to trade on futures and options on futures.

8:09 Secondly, we have built a new strategic position as a market infrastructure provider for institutional clients, assisting them with brokerage execution and clearing services. This is supported by our success in becoming a full clearing firm member of the CME Group Exchanges and will be driven by our healthy balance sheet and our highly differentiated technological capabilities. Also, we are already making progress in further expanding our clearing capabilities with other exchanges in the global futures market. I hope this gives you a better understanding of the opportunities for PLUS500 in The US. Our plan is to continue to allocate substantial financial and personal resources to maximize these opportunities over time and we will announce any further tangible progress accordingly.

8:59 I will now hand over to Elad, who will discuss our operational performance during the period.

9:07 Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. We produced another outstanding operational performance in the first half, half, driven by our proprietary technology, our focused investment and our ongoing efforts to drive deeper engagement with higher value long term customers. Our strong performance delivered a number of important outputs, with 82% of our OTC revenue in the first half of twenty twenty two being derived from customers trading with us for more than a year and increased customer duration on our OTC platform. In addition, client deposits were $1,200,000,000 highlighting consistently high customer loyalty and confidence in our product. We continue to lead the mobile and tablet space, with 85% of our OTC revenue in the first half of twenty twenty two being generated from customer trading on mobile or tablet devices, an increase of 300 basis points from the previous period, highlighting the market leadership position and our continued focus on innovation in this area.

10:15 This operational performance drove excellent financial results, as shown on slide 11. Total revenue was up by 48% to $511,000,000 EBITDA increased by 63% to $3.00 $5,000,000 and EBITDA margins grew to 60%. This drove cash conversion in the first half of twenty twenty two to 113%, helping us to end the period with cash balances of over $995,000,000 With a lean and flexible cost base and the business remaining debt free with no debt or loans, PLUS500 continues to stay in an outstanding financial position from which to invest in sustainable growth and continue to deliver value for its shareholders.

11:01 Our active customer base remained robust at over 216,000 with more than 57,000 new customers on board during the period. This was driven by continued significant investment in our marketing technology and on initiatives to drive customer retention, monetization activation, and was delivered despite lower volumes across the financial industry. Additionally, we continue to attract and onboard a strong level of new customers with a substantial long term value. Average revenue per user was strong at more than 2,300, thanks to our superior technology offering. On the next slide, we maintain our market leading position in key strategic markets for our OTC product offering.

11:47 We were ranked as the number one provider in The UK, Germany, and Spain by investment trends in their 2022 leverage trading report. We're also starting to develop strategic market position in both the institutional and retail sectors in The US future market as we seek to disrupt those sectors with our technology and financial strength.

12:12 On the next slide, as evidence of the long term value creation being delivered by our business model, the cumulative average revenue from active customers who first started trading during 2015 was approximately $5,300 as at the end of the first half of twenty twenty two. This highlights the long term sustainable value of our customer base driven by efficient online marketing initiatives enabled by our proprietary technology.

12:40 In addition, as you can see on slide 16, customer loyalty and longevity remained strong, with 82% of OTC revenue during the period being derived from customer trading on the group's OTC trading platform for more than a year, 36% for more than three years, and 15% for more than five years. Further highlighted on the following slide, which illustrate that we have continued to see an increase in customer activity defined by the percentage of OTC customers who have traded with us for more than one year. This strong level of customer loyalty gives us huge confidence that our customers are trading with our platforms on a sustainable long term basis.

13:25 This is the consequence of our continuous investment in our product offering, our consistently innovative mindset, and our ongoing customer focused approach. I will now hand back to David.

13:39 Thank you, Elad. On the next slide, we cover marketing. We have a multi dimensional and reverse approach to marketing, which is fundamentally driven by our technology. We operate multiple initiatives in performance marketing driven by data and insights to drive ROI and we manage numerous content marketing and PR campaigns. In addition, during the period, in conjunction with our technological marketing capability, we launched our first major global advertising campaign featuring Hollywood actor Kiffer Sutterland to build brand awareness increased in key strategic markets. This campaign is fully embedded across our social media platforms and other marketing channels. The next slide shows the returns achieved from our investment in marketing technology in recent years, with each bar chart showing cumulative returns from annual customer cohorts.

14:33 For example, the graph on the left shows that we have generated revenues of $435,000,000 since the start of 2018 from the marketing investment of $125,000,000 made in that year. That is a return of around 3.5 times, which gives you a sense of the level of returns we can generate from a marketing investment over time. I will now hand over to Elad to take you through the financials for the period. Thank you, David. Now moving to the financial overview, starting on Slide 20 with the income statement for the period.

15:11 Revenue was driven by consistent delivery of customer income and high levels of customer training performance during the period. This resulted in another strong EBITDA performance, which was also supported by our lean and flexible cost base, which I cover on the next slide. Marketing investment was elevated as planned as we look to capture opportunity to drive attractive returns on investment. Customer deposits were high at the level of $1,200,000,000 and accordingly, the commissions to processing companies. Other costs include expenses related with The U. S. Operations and onetime costs related to the brand campaign David mentioned earlier.

15:54 On the next slide, we demonstrate that our cost base remains heavily weighted towards variable costs, with 73% of our costs being variable during the period. This is a key financial strength for PLUS500 in an uncertain and dynamic economic environment. This variable cost remained positively correlated to enhanced performance and higher volume, including marketing investment and commissions to processing companies. Turning to the balance sheet on slide 23. Our business has never carried any debt or loans, and our balance sheet remains in an extremely good shape. PLUS500, therefore, remains in an excellent position to continue to invest in growth opportunities and business continuity.

16:46 Slide 24 covers the cash flow. With cash generated from operations of $344,900,000 during the period and after investing $51,700,000 as part of our share buyback program, Cash and cash equivalent balances at the end of the period increased significantly to $995,500,000 PLUS500

17:08 remains highly cash generated, supported by low levels of capital expenditure due to our automated processes and technological capabilities with higher 13% operating cash conversion achieved during the period. I will now discuss our approach to capital allocation on slide 25.

17:28 The board continues to assess the availability of excess capital going forward to ensure there remains an optimal balance between shareholder returns, investment in future growth, and in driving business continuity over the long term. In particular, the board aims to ensure that appropriate levels of available capital are maintained for required regulatory purposes, working capital, risk management, and hedging and clearing activity. We estimate that our current required capital is approximately at the level of $525,000,000.

18:04 This cash generative dynamic and the consequent capital capacity available to the business gives us high confidence that we can continue investing in future growth and make further healthy capital returns to our shareholders.

18:18 Our surplus capital, which reached to the level of around $470,000,000 at the end of the period, will continue to be used to invest in future growth and returns to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends. Clearly, both of our required capital and our surplus capital will develop over time and are subject to various internal and external factors. On that note, I will cover shareholder returns on slide 26. In the nine years since the company's IPO, PLUS500 returned approximately $1,600,000,000 to shareholders. And as you can see from the chart on the left, this represents approximately 73 percent of the cumulative net profit we have generated during that time.

19:06 Total shareholder returns announced today include an interim dividend in the amount of $60,200,000 and a new buyback program in the amount of $60,200,000. The interim dividend of $60,200,000 has an ex date of August 25, a record date of August 26, and a payment date of November 11.

19:29 This new share buyback program is in addition to the current outstanding program, which were also announced earlier this year, which include a special share buyback program related to the first half of twenty twenty two in the amount of $50,000,000. All in all, value to a distribution of $170,400,000 related to the first half of twenty twenty two. We have also announced today an updated shareholder returns policy in line with the preference for share buybacks highlighted by major PLUS500 shareholders from the current policy of returning at least 50% of net profit to shareholders through dividends and share buyback programs with at least 50% of this distribution being made by way of dividend.

20:15 With the updated policy, the company will continue to return at least 50% of net profit to shareholders through dividends and share buyback program. But from the second half of twenty twenty two onwards, at least 50% of the share buyback return distribution will be made by way of share buyback instead of by dividend.

20:35 This policy will continue to apply to net profits on a half yearly basis and will continue to be based on a 23% corporate tax rate for both interim and final distribution. The board will also consider executing special share buybacks or other distribution on a half yearly basis depending on physical year results as well as on investment and growth opportunities. I will now hand back to David.

21:05 Thank you, Elad. Let's now look at the outlook on slide 28. The Board remains confident about the outlook of PLUS500. Following several positive upgrades to market expectations related to PLUS500's financial performance, which took place earlier this year, the Board remains optimistic about the Group's performance for 2022 and beyond. We will continue to pursue several major growth opportunities through organic investment and by actively targeting acquisitions.

21:35 Therefore, PLUS500 remains well positioned to deliver sustainable growth over the medium and long term as a global multi asset fintech group. That's all from us. We will be happy to take your questions now.

21:50 David, Elad, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab that situates on the top right hand corner of your screen. Just while the company takes a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard. David, Elad, as you can see, we have received a number of questions that were pre submitted ahead of today's event, as well as a number of questions that have come in throughout today's presentation.

22:22 Firstly, may I thank all of those on the call for submitting their questions today. And Rob, if I could just hand back to you to chair the q and a session with the team, and then I will pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody for your questions. I'm going to try and aggregate them where I can because we have some similar themes and similar questions coming in. I think we'll start with growth. Question is, would you consider more acquisitions to grow or would you just grow through organic investment going forward? And apart from The US and Japan, which other markets are you looking to grow in and is this determined by the regulatory framework of the industry? Hi, good morning all. So very much, thanks for the question, of course. We're very much looking at the acquisitions as well as organic growth.

23:10 The business itself is in a great position also to bring together growth from an organic point of view as we've reflected over the years. Having said so, we are in the position also to utilize the level of resources and the capabilities, the technological capabilities that we're having in internally, and also by expanding ourselves into new jurisdictions and new verticals by getting those acquisitions. For example, last year PLUS500 acquired two businesses in The US. Through those acquisitions, not only we penetrated The US market from a geographic perspective, but also we got into the futures market, and currently we're about to launch in Q3, I. E. By the end of next month, the new trading platform for retail futures trading, and also for the institutional part that very much will expand our business there. So another signal and proof of that was through the acquisition in Japan, which took place in March this year, and very much through that acquisition, we acquired Easy Invest, and mainly we were after the license which they've held, and by having those licenses, we're bringing together the technological edge that we're having internally.

24:36 We're building the fundamentals to expand the business, and rather than buying giants and just burning money, we're actually building the momentum and added value for our shareholders. Thank you. And on The US in particular, can you give a little bit more detail about how you, how we plan to grow and what do think the potential there could be in The US? Sure. So The US vertical is a very interesting one and is much more sophisticated than the one even initially we assessed from a positive perspective, I. E. So initially when we went for the acquisition of Cunningham Commodities and also CDS, Cunningham Trading System, and we evaluate the market from the retail perspective.

25:25 Because PLUS500 over the last fourteen years have been really a giant within the B2C market and we are having lots of technologies to cater the retail market. If it's from the cashier solutions, then the ability to enable the client to deposit funds from wherever they are and from different kind of resources, of course, not just wires, but rather different alternative payment methods and also localized methods, so very much that. If it's from the marketing initiatives, the marketing machine capabilities and the engine based on the AI and big data one that we're also in the position to utilize in The US, if it's from the onboarding capabilities and the CRM strong facility that is proprietary technology in house, and many other technologies that we're having internally.

26:16 So we brought that all together and over the last year since we acquired Tanyam commodities, we developed a new trading app, which calls TradeSniper. So TradeSniper will bring together a new real feel and look and proposition to the futures market. You'll be able to come with a very simple ease of use approach to the futures trading level, and you'll have all the characteristic that you are used to have also within the OTC PLUS500 platform, but very much it's it's a cleared product. It's the futures one that is being connected to the directive changes, and the potential there is really huge because of what we've done already elsewhere in the world. We have the comfort and the strength to say that what we've done in Europe or Australia and so very much will also do in The US.

27:18 And you should take into consideration that The US futures market is not populated. So there are only 61 FCMs in the world, in The US, out there to be active and to have the license. Then, if you filter out the bulge brackets, which it's not their own kind of business or focus on the retail and the futures, very much you come to less than a handful of parties that are out there within the futures business, and then if you go and filter those who are having the technology and the level of resources to spend on marketing as PLUS400 is in the position to do, the amount is minimal to if at all.

28:04 And that's why we are having great level of comfort to say that we'll very much expand our business in The US as we've done historically elsewhere through the OTC product. This is the retail kind of segment. Putting aside the retail segment, through the year, we very much analyzed and came to the position to understand that we can also expand ourselves into the B2B vertical, I. E. To cater institutional bodies, brokers, IDs, introducing brokers, I. E, regulated IBs, and very much we we truly established a new line of business, which is a b to b one, and we're currently in the process of onboarding real institutional bodies, IPs in The US that are having thousands of clients and the potential there is tremendous.

29:01 So the combination also of the b to b vertical is being comprised of two line of revenues. The first one is the brokerage, I e, the execution by itself, and the second one is the clearing. And over the last year, we also since the acquisition took place, we also acquired the 11 different memberships of the CME in order to become a full clearing member of the CME, and we're in the process of doing so also with other exchanges across the globe. So from a clearing point of view, not only we can cater the execution side, but also the clearing side, and we are having great hope for the expansion of the b to b business with real kind of understanding that that will take place already within the next month or so.

29:54 Great, thank you. We had a follow-up question about what our revenue objectives were in The US, but I think I can address that actually just to say we haven't disclosed that at this point. Next question, can you discuss in more detail with the different elements of cash required to be kept on the balance sheet for regulatory and other requirements, please? Of course. So, as we came yesterday as out with the investor deck and the announcement you could have seen also within the presentation that we just covered, we were very specific about the reference point of the capital allocation, the amount that the board, the management would like to preserve in order to expand the business. Now, the five twenty five million dollars reference point is very much there in order to enable to bring more business. Okay? It's not a number in order to facilitate more remuneration or office spaces and more manpower and so on. Very much the logic is, and as as you could have seen over the years, we're very much tight with our level of spend, and 60% margin was the one in H1. We're very kind of responsible with the dollar amount to be spent as time goes by. But yet again, in order to bring together more business, you need to have strong level of capital, and why that's the case. So the first leg, the first pillar is very much the regulatory capital.

31:20 It's the one to be preserved according to the requirement by each of the regulators where we're being regulated by, if it's in The UK or Australia or Singapore and so on, so this is the first one. The second one is, of course, the working capital. You would like to maintain a decent level of working capital of a few months, of level of cost base that the company will have at all times in order to feel comfortable that this is in place. And the third and the fourth one, of course, relate to the risk management and the clearing and hedging activities, and we are in the process of also bringing those new businesses, as just mentioned, in The US, and due to that, we very much increased the reference point of the four fifty from previous times to the five twenty five, we do feel comfortable that that upper level should be sufficient at this stage, and you should also take into consideration that the time difference between bringing together those institutional bodies to trade with us require initially to have the capital, and then of course we start to generate revenues and profit. So the capital allocation of the 05/25 is being comprised of those four layers.

32:39 In addition to that, we are having the residual amount and the residual amount may be composed of acquisition and then shareholder returns. Over the time, I believe you've seen, we've been very much in line with our shareholders, if it's through dividends and share buybacks, and we will continue to do so with a tweak, as we've announced yesterday morning, of the new shareholder return policy with a greater level of focus on buybacks rather than dividends due to the confidence that we as a board have with the company for the longer scale as well, and also based on the shareholders' kind of interest.

33:26 So this is kind of the revised policy with additional caveat, which we actually refer that we may have special dividend capability, special dividend or, of course, buyback on the interim level, and this is exactly what we've done on the first half of twenty twenty two. We had a special buyback of $50,000,000 and this is again another contribution to our shareholders. Perfect. That actually answers the next question I was about. So I'll ask you about shareholder return policy and the level of share buybacks. Another question on cash. Do we get any interest benefit from cash balances, overnight charges or client deposits? Of course. So we can split the discussion into three main buckets.

34:16 The first one is, of course, own funds. So, funds, of course, is subject to the ability to generate revenues from interest on those amounts, and not all amounts are being invested in fixed depot or other plain vanilla and non risky products, but rather a level, and it's of course subject to the need to have also free liquid capital to maintain the business. So, the answer is yes on own funds. The second bucket is, of course, the OTC client money, which is not subject to interest revenue recognition due to regulatory limitations, so you're not allowed to do that. And the third one is the futures business. Within the futures business in The US, you do you you very much can generate revenues from interest on those client money amounts, and those may be invested in very plain vanilla vehicles such as T bills or when the amount is being invested through the clearing kind of account of the CME of the exchange and so on. So those are kind of the three main different layers.

35:39 Great, thank you. There's a couple of questions on customer trading performance levels in the first half, and maybe I'll ask each one separately. First question around that is, what are your current expectations for revenue going forward in the current economic conditions? So as for the performance itself, I believe you had the opportunity also last year in 2021 to see that over the last nine years and from the day of the IPO of 2013, the year of the IPO, we've been in a great position to generate all of our revenues from 2013 to 2021 just from customer income. So we were without any kind of outcome or any kind of revenue uplift from the customer training performance, and this is very much where the business is being synchronized towards, I. E, thanks to the risk management tools and the technology in place, from a statistic perspective, we're very much having various thresholds and limitations, and so which they diversify the exposures and the size of the transactions across lots and lots of customers across the globe, and each one of them is having their its own kind of discretion and the appetite for that specific transaction.

37:03 But all in all, when you model it, you come together to a real outcome, which can be, of course, assessed on the back of the historical performances. And therefore, we are always saying that custom training performance should not be significant as time goes by. Now, when we're looking at the first half, very much it was associated with higher revenues, which were driven by consistent level of customer income, very much important to mention that, and high level of the customer train performance as well, due to the market volatility. And we continue to expect that the contribution from customer train performance will be broadly neutral over time. I can say that they were really and extremely confident about the sustainability of our business model, and as a result of the power and the capability of our technology and continued progress in delivering against our strategic roadmap.

38:03 So altogether, very much the revenue should continue to be strong and the customer income to lead. Great, thank you. That answers another question about customer trading performance, about whether investors should be stripping it out of their earnings analysis. And I think you've answered that already. Third question was, is there any correlation between customer trading performance and customer income? So there is one, I. E, custom training performance, you can take into consideration that there is a lifetime value, right, of the client. If it's X, Y, or Z, it doesn't matter, and of course, you differentiate between various ones across the globe, between different devices, between various kind of other regions, but very much when we assess the lifetime value, there is a value. So let's assume the value is x. That x may be generated during a level of time, and if, for example, some of it was generated in a quicker manner, of course, it would have been generated potentially by a bit longer time period if it was through the customer income.

39:18 So that's why we feel comfortable with that revenue recognition as well, but very much we're referring to the fact that it's kind of another kind of cherry on top of the cream. However, it also generate more interest and more kind of intention from activation perspective once the vol and the financial news are out there for a customer to trade. So there is a correlation, but not on always this is the case, I. E, and I'll explain why, because sometimes very much, thanks to our risk methodology and the the the splits and the thresholds which we're having behind the scene of the with with the platform, we are enjoying very much from the diversification of the asset classes and not in all parts.

40:08 The movements are in a direct correlation if it's equities or commodities and so, and that's why you saw the positive outcome rather than the negative outcome. Great, thank you. Just a couple more questions. Firstly, would you consider a share split to make the shares more marketable? Sure, split currently, I would say, is not really on the table. The value is not too significant in order to bring it to the table. I would say that assessed it with our advisors, and the outcome was that it not only will bring added value, but rather will create more noises due to the fact that it goes against also the buyback program by itself and so on. So the answer is that it's not part of the strategic discussion.

41:13 Makes sense. Can I ask a question? With acquisitions in new markets, would this have a negative impact on our current high levels on return on equity? So I believe you're in a position to assess and to explore our latest acquisitions, the size, the magnitude, the approach that we're having. Over the years, we've been very responsible with the dollar amount to be spent. Of course, if a very attractive transaction will come into our hands and will be in a greater level of magnitude, it's something for us always to assess, and we've assessed those over the years. And unfortunately, we haven't seen that the added value is tremendous versus the additional capital to be spent, and therefore we're still having those more bolt on acquisition.

42:15 But having said so, it's something to consider and we're very much focused also on the ROE level. And over the last three years, I believe you could see that the PLUS500 ROE level was at the level of 75 and numbers speak for themselves. Thank you. And the final question, who do you see as your key peers and competitors in the various markets and products that we run? Sorry, couldn't hear the last question. Yeah, final question was who do we see as our relevant peers and competitors? So, of course, you know, without going into names, because it's not our approach kind of to refer specifically to other companies, but very much, there are good companies that some of them are public ones, some of them are private ones, if they were referring to The UK market or in The US.

43:13 But having said so, I believe that over the years, PLUS500 delivered an upper level of performance, thanks to its technological scale and technological edge. It's something that the others, they just don't have, okay? The level of technology that we're having internally, if it's from the marketing side, the onboarding side, the CRM level, the risk management, the fraud detection, the cashier solution, the system architecture, retention initiatives. All in all, it's our own proprietary technology. Usually, you'll find those services to be provided, either some of them be developed internally and some of them to be plug and play by other kind of shelf products or other kind of outsourced companies.

44:03 And the benefit to have all in all in one omniset solution to be developed in one house, it's a tremendous, tremendous added value. And that's why we continue to see the added value also to be generated through revenues, through the recruitment of the customers, and, of course, through the profits to be generated. David, Elad, Rob, thank you very much indeed for taking the time to update investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure would be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of PLUS500 LTD, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation.

44:49 That now concludes today's session, so good morning to you all.